In the first sense, many more informal terms are frequently used instead, such as "standard example" or "basic example", and the longer form "archetypal example" is also found. In mathematics, an archetype is often called a "canonical example".

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The word archetype first entered into English usage in the 1540s[1] and derives from the Latinnounarchetypum, latinisation of the Greek noun ἀρχέτυπον (archetupon), whose adjective form is ἀρχέτυπος (archetupos), which means "first-molded",[2] which is a compound of ἀρχή archē, "beginning, origin",[3] and τύπος tupos, which can mean, amongst other things, "pattern," "model," or "type."[4] The word "pattern" comes from the Greek root "pater-", meaning "father",[5] so archetype can be understood as the principle pattern from which others are copied.[6]

Usage of archetype in a specific piece of write up or concept has holistic approach, which further makes it win universal acceptance. Readers get to relate, identify with the characters and situation, both socially and culturally. By deploying common archetype contextually, a writer aims to impart realism[7] to his work. Going by many literary critics, archetypes have a standard and recurring depiction in a particular human culture and/or the whole human race that ultimately lays concrete pillars by shaping the whole structure in a literary work.

The origins of the archetypal hypothesis date back as far as Plato. Plato's ideas were pure mental forms that were imprinted in the soul before it was born into the world. They were collective in the sense that they embodied the fundamental characteristics of a thing rather than its specific peculiarities. In the seventeenth century, Sir Thomas Browne and Francis Bacon both employ the word 'archetype' in their writings; Browne in The Garden of Cyrus (1658) attempted to depict archetypes in his usage of symbolic proper-names.

The concept of psychological archetypes was advanced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, c. 1919. In Jung's psychological framework, archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype is a complex ( e.g. a mother complex associated with the mother archetype). Jung treated the archetypes as psychological organs, analogous to physical ones in that both are morphological constructs that arose through evolution.[8] At the same time, it has also been observed that evolution can itself be considered an archetypal construct.[9]

Jung states in part one of Man And His Symbols that:

My views about the 'archaic remnants', which I call 'archetypes' or 'primordial images,' have been constantly criticized by people who lack a sufficient knowledge of the psychology of dreams and of mythology. The term 'archetype' is often misunderstood as meaning certain definite mythological images or motifs, but these are nothing more than conscious representations. Such variable representations cannot be inherited. The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif—representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern.

Archetypal literary criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works and that a text's meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths. Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or made concrete by recurring images, symbols, or patterns (which may include motifs such as the 'quest' or the 'heavenly ascent;' recognizable character types such as the 'trickster' or the 'hero;' symbols such as the apple or snake; and imagery) and that have all been laden with meaning prior to their inclusion in any particular work.